An addition to the crew, 'Cara Teton'...
What can I say... So much has happened over the last month and a half...
The casting was going to be done over Christmas and early January... Myra and I were also going to buy all the baby stuff, clothes, pram, car seat, cot, etc... But the 18th December changed all that...
Cara 2 days old at Queen Mary's in Sidcup.
To cut an extremely long story short... Myra was admitted into the 'Chelsea and Westminster' hospital on the 18th December. We both went for a hospital tour and Myra had a blood pressure check up afterwards, the week before it had begun to rise and our doctor was worried that Myra might have 'preeclampsia', she did and from that point onwards it was a pretty rough ride until a few days after our fantastic daughter, Cara, was born on the 3rd January 2003...
Pretty must immediately after myra went into the maternity ward at the 'Chelsea and Westminster', we knew it was a too busy and understaffed... This is supposed to a flag ship hospital but to be honest its a zoo.
It wasn't a good start when Myra didn't have her blood pressure read for the first 12 hours she was admitted... Don't forget she's there for high blood pressure... Unfortunately the night staff were mostly agency staff... The day staff in general were incredibly but extremely over worked... To compound it all, the hospital machinery i.e. electronic blood pressure and fetal scan equipment, needed a good service, to say the least... One thing which stuck us both was that Myra was not even issued with a tag, she is in fact allergic to a penicillin substitute... To be honest, no one in the 3 wards had a tag...
Cara looking snuggly wuggly!
Luckily, as it happened, on the 26th December, we were told that we would have to transfer out of the 'Chelsea and Westminster' because they did not have an incubator for our baby. Unfortunately even this was a drama/trauma... We saw a Consultant who had said everything was stabilising and they hoped to keep us in for quite a bit longer... An hour later Myra saw another Consultant said she should be immediately transferred and have a C-Section within 24 hours... The complete opposite...
I hadn't been there for the second discussion, so Myra called me and I ran back... After a slight argument with a midwife a Doctor arrived to discuss the matter. It now appeared that if Myra didn't transfer out it would be a danger to her and the babies health... So we agreed, even though the hospital we were being transferred to, the 'Queen Mary's Hospital' in Sidcup, we knew nothing about... For all we knew it could have been the worst hospital in the UK...
After we agreed to the decision, we started to pack, thinking we had at least an hour or so, but within 10 minutes an ambulance crew had arrives and starts to pressure us to leave 'now'... I talked to one of the crew and agreed it was OK to grab a bag full of clothes and the car and meet them at the emergency exit...
So I ran, and I mean I run... Called Myra's parents, pack an over night bag jumped in the car... We literally live 5000 yards from the hospital... All of a sudden Myra calls from the mobile, she has sneaked into a loo and call me saying they won't wait any longer... Anyway I get there and everything is panic stations... Totally unnecessary... I insist they give me the address incase I get lost and as 'agreed' I will follow them...
The trouble is, immediately they get onto the main road they start the blue light... To be honest, I'm so wound up seeing Myra being shoved in an ambulance and blue lighted, after being told that everything is OK, that I freak out and start to follow the ambulance at high speed across red lights... Even with morons try to block me, thinking I'm trying to skive the traffic...
Checking Cara's weight in salad bowl...
I know the ambulance would have let me continue, but through dark glass, of which I can't see her, Myra was freaking out... Quite rightly... In the end she main the ambulance stop and tell me to calm down... I mean it was crazy, in any state, to allow me to follow the ambulance...
After that I came to my senses and parked up for about 10 minutes... It had taken Myra less than 20 minutes to get to 'Queen Mary's Hospital' in Sidcup, but it took me about an hour and half...
When I got there Myra was being well looked after, her blood pressure was down and the doctors where carrying out their own tests... Thankfully they wanted to give both Myra and our unborn baby the best chance, so they delayed the immediate C-Section... With their outstanding care and 24 hour attention we managed to give the baby another 10 days of life inside Myra
... This meant that when the baby was born she had a very good chance of being able to breath normally... We both would really like to thank all the midwifes, doctors and consultant at 'Queen Mary's Hospital' for giving us the best care we could possibly imagine... They even taught us how to bath and change Cara, where else would you get that...
Anyway, like I said, thank 'God' everything is OK... On the 3rd January 2003 at 23.13, Cara was born...
Myra in the end had to have an emergency c-section and be completely knocked out... I can tell you, I prayed to God for about 40 minutes until I saw Myra and Cara was OK...
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